What is truly needed in such a system, and in campaign finance reform generally, is immediate transparency. Thirty years ago, that wasn’t possible. With the near-ubiquity of broadband Internet access, it’s almost cost-free now. Instead of erecting artificial barriers to contributors that create opacity and unaccountability by design, we should be crafting systems that make candidates and their political parties fully responsible for their messaging and tactics, rather than allow them to hide behind organizations built by their big donors.

I’d check on Hell to see if it’s frozen over, but I live in Minnesota, almost as far away from it as you can get in this world. Minnesota is definitely frozen over today, by the way.

Comments

The way to stop from having too much money is politics is to severely curb regulation, subsidies and put in place a flat tax.

As long as corporations can buy regulation to benefit them on a competitive level, buy influence to garner them tax credits and subsidies, they’ll continue to spend a little less than what they think they’ll get in returns.

The crony capitalism in place allows for outrageous amounts being spent.

We can argue til the cows come home which one came first, but the bottom line is we need to cut the bureaucracies to watch the money in politics make a retreat.

While I agree with your statements about crony capitalism being a huge issue, a flat tax will not solve it. Only a consumption based tax will let the people choose if they wish to participate in letting the government have money.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: in order to take the money out of politics, you have to take the politics out of money. Take away the government’s ability to influence the economy, and there’ll be no more incentive to donate to parties/candidates or hire lobbyists.

I thought this was going to be an amnesty normalization of undocumented citizens post.

Regulating political free speech is against the most fundamental principle of our society (the First Amendment). We don’t need “transparency” in political free speech. Allowing anonymous commentary has a long tradition starting before 1776.

BTW, thanks for letting me comment anonymously on hotair 🙂 I genuinely appreciate it. I don’t want my political comments to interfere with my business and enjoy the opacity it allows. With the encroaching liberty grabs by the left, it’s good to have this place.

EM, you agree only because Axelrod neglected to completely document his thought.
Using my super-secret detect-o spy glasses I see his 4th post:

To finally bring about public shaming directly to the front doors of every single person who dared to contribute to any campaign of the evil GOP.
His intent isn’t for some grandiose, larger than himself plan to finally make elections about ideas and whose plans are better. No, it’s so that the DNC can bus purple shirters and Obamaphoner directly to the front door of anyone who steps out of line.

No one needs to know who I contribute to and in what amount. That is not the public’s business. I understand the desire to make candidates more transparent and accountable, but violating the privacy of everyone who donates to influence the political process is not the answer. Not by a long shot.